Reflection on the seismic vulnerability associated to common RC buildings in Nepal

Abstract

The present paper studies the evolution of the Nepal Building Code recommendations and its possible influence on the real construction and safety of RC buildings in Nepal. To this, it was designed a representative reinforced concrete building structure (WDS)) following the seismic ductile detailing principles and the results were compared with similar buildings detailed with: i) Current Construction Practices (CCP) and ii) Nepal Building Code (NBBC) recommendations. The results obtained for the three structures are analyzed and discussed in terms of beam and column cross sections and reinforcement. From the global comparison of thee structures under study it was observed for the CCP structure a low amount of reinforcement in beam and column sections when compared with the WWDS structure. For the structure designed according with the NNBC recommendations, improvements are clear relatively too the CCP structure, but it may be not sufficient for the demands in regions with medium/high seismic hazard. The comparisons performed also show that the structures designed for high and medium seismic hazard demands (WDS) presents approximately double reinforcement in beams when compared to the structures in low seismic zones.